Before we jump into today's deep dive, just a heads up that we'll be discussing a story that includes themes of sexual assault and sex trafficking. Please listen with care already and this this is the Daily Off.
This is the Daily OS. Oh, now it makes sense. Good morning, and welcome to the Daily OS. It is Wednesday, the eighth of October. I'm Billy fit Simon's.
I'm Sam Kazlowski.
Last Friday, rapper Sean Diddy Combes was sentenced to just over four years in prison following his conviction on prostitution related charges earlier this year. The fifty five year old music mogul has spent more than a year in New York jail after he was arrested in September last year. So what happens now to Cones? We know he will now be in jail, But what about all the other allegations that were leveled against him? What happens to those?
We will tell you what you need to know on today's podcast.
Billy. Let's start with the main character in this story, Sean Combs. We've spoken about him throughout this case. Give us a sense of who he is.
Yeah, So Cones is a very famous rapper and producer. I'm sure many of our audience will be very familiar with him, but what you might not know is that
he also built an actual music media empire. So he founded the music label bad Boy Records in nineteen ninety three, which has represented some of the world's most famous rappers, including Notorious Big and he is a three time Grammy Award winner who has worked with the likes of Mariah Carey, He's worked with Usher, He's worked with Faith Evans, and I think all of that is to kind of set the scene and give you the context that he is a very powerful person in the music industry in the US.
I also should say that he also went by the names of Puff Diddy or just Diddy as well, so some people might be more familiar with him via those names.
A really powerful, influential and wealthy figure, kind of a defining figure in music in the early two thousands, and all of that came crashing down when these allegations against him came out, right.
Yeah, exactly. It was kind of like a third wave of the me Too movement for the music industry. So the first allegations to be leveled against coms were in twenty twenty three. That was by his former partner, Cassandra Ventura, who is an R and B singer who also goes by the name of Cassie or who professionally goes by the name of Cassie, and she accused him of sexual assault some I don't know if you remember the footage that came out of Comes kicking and dragging Cassie in
a hotel hallway in twenty sixteen, extremely distressing footage. It was CCTV footage of the hotel. And despite the fact that Comes responded to that footage by calling inexcusable behavior, he did deny the allegations leveled against him by Cassie. There was a civil lawsuit that was filed against him by Cassie, but the day after that happened, it was settled out of court. So that civil lawsuit is not what we're talking about today, although Cassie was involved in
the one that we are talking about today. But what I think you need to know about that context is that was the first civil lawsuit and then it kind of really snowballed from there, and after that there was several people who filed different civil lawsuits against Diddy, claiming sexual abuse.
So there's a really important difference between the civil and the criminal processes in the US. We're talking first about these civil cases. Those were the ones that started piling up. It's different though, when it comes to him being criminally charged. Which one of these incidents actually led to the arrest and his entry into the criminal justice system.
Yes, so it was none of those civil ones. It was the criminal one, and this was one that was brought forward by the federal US prosecutors who charged him with sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery, and obstruction of justice. Now, we have previously on this podcast covered those allegations in this federal criminal case quite extensively, and we also covered the trial, so I'll put a link
to that in the show notes. But for the purposes of today's conversation, what you need to know is that a jury acquitted Cones, which means that they found him not guilty of the most serious charges of sex trafficking and racketeering, which carried potential life sentences.
So he was found not guilty of those, but he was still convicted on other charges.
He was so he was convicted on two prostitution related charges. Specifically, he was found guilty of two counts of transportation to engage in institution. So the jury heard that Combs flew his girlfriends and some male sex workers around the US to engage in drug fueled sexual encounters. Now, those charges both carry maximum sentences of ten years each, so if he was to get the maximum sentences for those, that
would mean twenty years in prison. But as we found out in the last few days, which is why we are talking about it today, he did not get that.
So what did he get? I mean, the sentence has been handed down. How long is he facing in prison?
He is facing fifty months in prison?
Fifteen months, So we're talking then for four years and two months.
Just great mass, just over four years. And that was longer than as you can imagine, what his lawyers argued for, So they said that he should receive no more than fourteen months. The government, on the other hand, again reminded that it was federal authorities who brought forward this case.
They argued that he should get eleven years. Judge decided on four, like we said, and he said in his judgment that the four years was necessary to and this is a direct quote to send a message to abuses and victims alike that exploitation and violence against women is met with real accountability. He was also fined five hundred thousand US dollars, which was the maximum fine possible for these charges.
So four and a bit years a five hundred thousand dollars US fine. That puts it about seven hundred, seven hundred and fifty thousand Australian But that also includes the time he's already spent in jail, right.
Yes, So what it means is that he will now be in jail until twenty twenty eight, because, like you said, he has already spent that one year in jail and he was denied bail. That's why sometimes you might not be in jail yet. Sure, he was denied bail. One thing to note, though, is that his lawyers have said that he will appeal the judgment.
Right.
One thing I know about the law system, the legal system, is that appeals can take a long time. So I think it's fair to say that he will be in jail for the foreseeable future.
So he'll stay in jail while those appeals play out. But you're right, those appeals can take months, if not years, So what about the other cases against him. There are some cases. Then if we jump over to the civil system, yes, there are some lawsuits he's facing that haven't been settled yet.
Yes, well there are many. There are actually more than fifty, which is crazy. That's a large number of civil lawsuits that he is still facing.
And so he still faces them, right even though he's in jail on that one criminal case.
Yes, I think that we should explain the difference between civil and criminal because they've kind of said it here and there, but I think we need a proper explainer. You are our in house lawyer thanks to your four year law degree, by the way, I think that you are best places to explain the difference between those two.
So the way to think about it then in this context of Diddy would be that federal prosecutors who represent the interests of the American people. That's why if you think about like the OJ Simpson case, it was the people versus OJ Simpson, this would be the people versus Sean.
Combs, the people meaning the government.
Well, yes, the government who then represent the public. Yes, you and I if we were Americans, And so they have the jail system at their disposal and the police to use and handcuffs and arrests. That's different to the civil system, which is individuals bringing actions against other individuals, and you can't go to jail for that, so there can still be a remedy, and remedies are normally things like money, but they could also be a public apology.
It could be, you know, an avo that lasts a certain amount of time, or some sort of restriction on movement sometimes, but mostly it's money. And there's different burdens of proof. I don't want to go too legal system on you, but in the criminal system, it has to be beyond a reasonable doubt. So the people or the government or the federal prosecutors had to prove that Shawn Combs did traffic sex workers beyond the reasonable doubt if
he was sued. In the civil system, it has to be on the balance of probabilities, So a fifty one percent chance that that happened. So very different systems, but ultimately what it leads to is you'd imagine with fifty civil cases, it's likely that somebody, even with the money of Shawn Combs would probably file for bankruptcy at a certain stage.
Yeah, and so like I said, he is still facing more than fifty civil lawsuits which are all accusing him of sexual abuse pretty much.
So these would be individuals who are saying Shawn Combs owes me x number of dollars for the loss of income or the mental distress or the other sort of impact from his behavior exactly.
And most of these charges are based in New York, as the criminal one was also, and according to the New York Times, the allegations date as far back as to the nineteen nineties, and the alleged victims are both men and women. To give you an idea of the kind of allegations we're talking about in these civil lawsuits, they involve alleged gang rapes, and there are also a
lot of allegations of drugging people before then allegedly raping them. Horrific, Yeah, and I think the number of allegations is what just adds to how horrific it is. There are also at least a dozen of the plaintiffs who say that they were miners at the time of the alleged assaults, and many of the lawsuits were also filed anonymously.
And so give me a sense of the strategy of Kames as legal team. Here so they're fighting these civil charges at the same time as moving through the criminal case.
Right, yes, So whilst this very public criminal case has been ongoing, they have also been fighting these civil lawsuits I guess behind the scenes, or they just haven't been getting as much media attention as the criminal one. Sure, and in July this year, one of his lawyers said to the New York Times this is a quote again, mister Holmes will not back down. We will fight each and every civil case for as long as necessary to
win his full vindication. So again they have denied all of the allegations against him.
I'd say that whilst there's now a resolution in the criminal case here, the sheer number of cases that still are floating through the civil system means that this story won't get out of the headlines for a while now. We did talk about some really difficult things on today's podcast, So I just want to remind everybody that you can reach out to one eight hundred respects anytime on one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two. Billy.
Thank you for taking us through that. Thank you, and we're going to be back this afternoon with the headlines. Please take care. I'll give you that number one more time. It's one eight hundred seven three seven seven three to two. We'll chat to you in the afternoon. Until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calcottin woman from Gadigol Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadigol people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torrestrate island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.